


The World Has No Right To My Heart

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: Even More Angst Nobody Asked For (AKA Bonus Content) [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Recovery, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:55:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's got plenty of practice with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Has No Right To My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> ALL the Hamilton references because it's wrecking me right now.   
> Anyone read the Hamiltome? IT's painful, y'all. Also, I hope you catch the It's Quiet Uptown reference T^T

Grieving comes in stages. It’s a process that Tony has come to know very well in his forty-odd years of living on this earth. Each type of grief he’s been forced to endure has been slightly different. With his parents, the numbness came and then the carelessness. He’d tried more alcohol and drugs in those first six months than ever before. With Jarvis, he’d cried for a week straight; secluded in his brand new mansion all alone. With Obidiah, he’d been angry and then numb. Furious until the blue fire in his heart had extinguished all at once. Pepper? Pepper had forced his hand; he’d channeled everything into his projects. In his mind, and he’s man enough to admit it at least to himself, it had been a last fuck you to the expectations he’d felt were placed on him. He’d thrown himself into the Maria Stark foundation and then the Accords with twice the fight. To prove that whether he had the suit or not Iron Man was an indispensable part of his ongoing survival.

Steve wrecked any practice with grief he ever thought he could have. In hindsight, that was clear since the beginning. Steve had opened up things in Tony that had been shut inside since the first berating word his father had given him. The scared little boy that cowered in the back of his mind, in the dark and frozen corners of his heart, Steve had coaxed him out and allowed him to grow. To open up. To be vulnerable. Thinking back on it, Tony can pinpoint what happened to that little boy as if they were actions lined up for a play.

It went a little bit like this:

“I’m sorry Tony, you know I wouldn’t do this if I had another choice, but he’s my friend,” Steve says and he’s on his knees in a parody of pleading.

But that’s not what that is.

“So was I,” Tony says behind the face plate, and he hopes that Steve knows him well enough to know that he’s being untethered in that moment.

And then Steve walks away to join his _friend._

Steve, the Winter Soldier _the Starks’ murderer_ by his side, walks away.

_Stark shatters._

And despite his best efforts, despite knowing from the beginning that it was an impossibility, he’d been unable to piece himself together. He’d taped some of the pieces together, in a shoddy attempt to recreate what Steve had helped build, but he’d been unable to.

Steve’s type of grief had been a compilation of all the others. He’d worked his ass off till he’d been able to lift the Accords and kept his family safe. He’d been angry for a while too, at everyone for betraying him the way they did and at himself for letting himself be suckered into caring for them. He’d been numb from then on. He’d let go, completely. He’d let the pieces unglue and spread until the jagged edges cut him whenever they accidentally touched him. He’d lost weight, he knew, he was pale and shaky and he barely looked like himself whenever he caught a glimpse of his reflection. The gun was just an extension of that numbness, a way to make it permanent.

He hadn’t reached actual, soul-crushing grief until he got to have Steve in front of him, and he’d noticed everything he’d lost. God, he’d thought the ghost of him was bad. The real thing was much worse. Tony had thought he’d rid himself of this love he had for him. He’d expected another case of what Obie had been. He’d expected the love and respect he’d had to morph into another nightmare, more chainmail for his armor, but no. of course that’s not how this would work.

If anything ,seeing Steve again had made the hole in his chest gape wider until he’d been shaking and crying and delirious with grief. The gun had shaken in his hand, if he had been using all his faculties he would have noticed how laughable it was that he thought himself a threat. He’d expected Steve to act the way he’d done the final time they’d met. He’d expected him to immobilize the threat, use his training to divest Tony of his weapon. Tony had felt the panic rising at the thought, the memories still far too fresh in his too-smart brain; he’d been already flinching back in wait of the next hit.

Maybe that’s what had finally broken him. The fact that Steve _hadn’t_ acted the way Tony had expected. Rather than fight him, as he’d always done before, Steve had done the complete opposite. He’d taken the weapon and opened up, and if the trembling in his fingers had been any indication, he’d been utterly prepared to lose for it.

There are a few moments in a person’s life that put them at the pinnacle of a precipice. Things can go one way or the other, but they always hang in those few perfect seconds when everything looks so much clearer than it ever has before. Sitting in that bed, the remnants of who they’d been and who they were then, Tony and Steve had shared one of those moments. They’d faced each other, without anger or contempt for what seemed like the first time in months, and had just breathed together.

Then Steve had put the barrel next to his chest, and had given Tony the choice.

When their eyes met, it felt like a challenge. It felt as though Steve was trying to prove the one thing he had never been able to make Tony understand.

_Prove it, Shellhead. Prove it to yourself. Who’s the better man?_

Tony stood at that pinnacle and saw what his choice would create. What it would do. The pain and the struggle that it would bring, but he knew, more than anything, what the right thing to do was.

_Revenge or redemption?_

Ironically, Tony knew he’d made the right choice when the pain tore through his chest as the gun dropped and Steve lunged at him.

And Tony, for the first time, gave as good as he got. For the first time he let loose despite the pain he might cause. He screamed and ranted and cried, but it… it was… freeing. He’d spent so long swallowing and taking everything life threw at him. Every attack, every wound, every hit… he’d just rolled with the punches.

So, in the end, sitting there as they clung to each other, Tony’s play went a little more like this:

Tony screams and hits Steve. Berates him for his broken heart.

Steve, for the first time, takes the hit. He stands there because he knows he has to be the strong one this time.

Then, then, they lunge at each other. They clung to each other and cry and cry and…

_Stark and Rogers, for the first time, shatter together._

**Author's Note:**

> if you need me, i'll be sobbing in the corner


End file.
